From Survival to Revival: In the Aftermath of the Assyrian Genocideby Professor Abdul-Massih Saadi, Ph.D., Assyrians After Assyria ConferencePosted: Friday, August 25, 2000 02:46 pm CST

From Survival to Revival: In the Aftermath of the Assyrian Genocide

ProfessorAbdul-Massih Saadi, Ph.D.

Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago

July 2, 2000

From the dawn of civilization, empires and peoples have risen to greatness, left their gifts for posterity, and then fallen into obscurity or extinction. Among these is the Assyrian nation, not extinct but still living and breathing, thousands of years after Babylonia, Akkad, Nineveh and Aram. Its people have ridden the tides of time longer than any other nation on earth now living, and cling tenaciously to their culture and language. This monumental achievement of survival, however, has been long and bitter, and has not come without a price. The Assyrian men, women and children, when faced with their own extinction, have paid over and over again in blood and in numbers for the right to exist and to have a name in their ancestral homelands.

If you talk to Assyrians, you will hear them call themselves by more than one name (Suraye/ Suroye, Suryoye, Othoraye, Aramaye, Chaldaye ..etc). This is because their rich and ancient heritage has left many historic classifications by which various groups came to identify themselves. In fact they all share the same language, with a few dialectical difference, the same socio-cultural cohesion, same long history of survival and now the same fate. While they maintain these historic naming choices for some community or religious purposes, they all as one acknowledge their core identity as one and the same nation. Out of the ten great civilizations in human history, the Assyrians created one of the greatest many years before Christ, and their legacy was to be the world standard of civilization for commerce, government, law, literature and culture in general for two thousand years.And despite the lost of political and military power, their language remain the Lingua Franca for more than a thousand year. Most importantly, centuries have passed, and they continue to seek a productive life and peace for themselves as well as for everybody around them.

Geographical Location of the Assyrians on the Eve of WWI
At the turn of the century, the Assyrian people, the torchbearers of the earliest civilization in the world, and the living remnant of over 6,000 years of history in the region, lived under the Ottoman and Persian Empires.Their region was roughly known as “Upper Mesopotamia,” which includes: south and southeastern present-day Turkey, [they were spread from Miyafarqin, Hakkari, Bohtan, Tur-Abdin (over 240 villages), Nisibin, Mardin, Urfa (Edessa) all the way to Adana West; in the north, from Siirt, Bitlis, Diyarbakir, Malatia. Under Persian rule, they were mostly in western Azerbaijan, at Urmia and the Salamas districts.

The other Assyrians (Syriac people) were spread over places in present day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and in the Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia).

Ecclesiastical Diversity Among the Assyrians
Like most peoples, the Assyrians have various ecclesiastical traditions, although mostly they are Christian denominators. The Assyrians of the Church of the East include: Orthodox (or Nestorians), Catholic (Chaldeans) and Protestants. Similarly, the Assyrians of the West Syriac Church encompass several traditions: Orthodox (or Jacobites), Catholic, Melkites (Roman Orthodox & Roman Catholic), Maronites, and Protestants.

For thousands of years, while the Assyrians maintained their civilized continuity and peaceful cooperation with their neighbors or partners in the region: Armenians, Greeks, Persians, Arabs, Kurds and Turks, they suffered many severe persecutions, suppression and massacres. Yet in the end of the 19th century (Abdul-Hamid’s massacres) and by the turn of the 20th century in the World War One, the Assyrians received the biggest blows time and again from the Ottoman authorities, which reduced them to desperation and annihilation.

As a surviving remnant of our parents’ genocides, living the consequences of its aftermath, we modern Assyrians are anxiously struggling on several fronts: (1) to understand the reasons behind the genocide of our parents, (2) to determine the ways and means to prevent such a fate from ever happening again; (3) to secure a civilized continuity for our next generation; and lastly (4) to restore the civilized and civilizing role of our ancestors.

Implication of Genocide

The survivors from our parents told their stories in terms of Killing (Qettla), Deportation (sawqiaat), and Sword (Sayfo). This is because the word and concept of Genocide had not yet been coined nor its concept was determined. Contrary to the concept of homicide, the intentional of murder of an individual, Genocide means the destruction of a group as the outcome of governmental policy. It was on December 9, 1948 the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution delineating the full meaning of Genocide and condemned it as “a crime under international law.”[1]

Specifically speaking, the Genocide, according to the statement issued by the U.N., “means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, such as:

Killing members of the group;

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.[2]

This inclusive definition of Genocide by the U.N. presented a spectrum of acts and policies. All five of defined points of Genocide unequivocally are applicable to our Assyrian people, from physical massacres to forcible deculturation. The history of millions of native Assyrians in the region witnesses that they endured their fate century after century. On one hand, they honestly and earnestly presented to their partners the most civilized production ranged of literary, spirituality, science, economy, and peace; on the other hand, they suffered all kinds of atrocities, brutality and overall decimation from many of their neighbors or partners. The horrific massacres in WWI by the Ottoman authorities was neither the first nor the last; the instance of SEMILE in Iraq in 1933, which we often commemorate on the 7th of August where 3,000 innocent civilian Assyrians were massacred by the Iraqi regular troops led by Baker Sedqi, the chief army. The constant process of deculturation against our people continues not only by Turkey but also by many other countries, as their own language, values, patriotism, folklore, personal security, dignity and economical survival are threatened and almost nullified. Specifically, the Assyrians (all various denominations) of “Upper Mesopotamia,” they were numbered one million persons on the eve of WWI. And had there been no Genocide, they Assyrians could have numbered 20 million by now. In fact, because of the Genocide and its aftermath, now, at that same region they number only a couple thousand.

By the turn of the century, and due to nationalistic awakening, many members of the above-mentioned churches preferred to be identified with one nationalistic name, Assyrian, rather than by the various names of the church traditions.[3] Generally speaking, the Assyrians of the Church of the East were distributed in the Eastern part of “Upper Mesopotamia,” while the Assyrians of the West Syriac Churches lived in the middle and Western part of “Upper Mesopotamia.”

Dramatic Tragedy

For the last 2500 years, the Assyrians experienced many persecutions as a powerless people. Although they were among the first people to adopt Christianity, through which they demonstrated their prolific literary and civilized contribution, becoming Christians did not prevent their fate of constant persecution and perseverance. But despite all the obstacles, and for two more millennia, the Assyrians proved their vitality of productivity, peace, and loving intention for all the people of the earth. Their writers and philosophers did not cease to contribute in most kinds of constructive knowledge, cordial interfaith tracts, and even science. Likewise, their spiritual people generously enriched the culture of their region.And their missionaries, without distinction or prejudice, reached out to all their surrounding world, as far as India and China, to show, through their unprejudiced and indiscriminate good deeds, the power of love that makes all people around the world one through faith.[4] This civilized nature, despite all the blows throughout their long history, proved to be like an elastic and flexible willow tree, that bends with the stormy winds and weather, but afterwards stands tall, proud and unbroken, once more to continue to bear fruits.

The harshest, most pitiless blow, however, like a fiery sword falling time and time again on the trunk of our tree, occurred in the beginning of this century by the so-called “civilized, modern nation,” Turkey, and under the observation and silence of the “most civilized western nations.”

In the aftermath of the horrible massacre by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul-Hamid in 1894-1896, which claimed thousands of Assyrians, the Assyrians were unable to heal their wounds because the direst time of their entire history on earth, their genocide, was waiting like an angel of death at the door. The Young Turk dethroned Abdul-Hamid in 1908, and contrary to the optimistic expectation of the Assyrians, the new movement demonstrated even more scathing cruelty and severity.

Many historians and politicians have analyzed the reasons behind the brutal deportations and massacre by the Ottomans authorities against their Christian (Greek, Armenians, Assyrians) subjects. The crux of the matter is that the Assyrians were not responsible in any way or deserving of such a fate. This is the real bottom line and the real reason we are all here today. According to historical analysis, it might be said that among the various motives that the Ottoman authorities had to commit such various and stupefying atrocities were: first, the new, national ideology and identity of the Turks; second, the dramatic territorial loss of Ottoman Empire: Bulgaria in 1908, Bosnia, Herzegovina which in 1908 were annexed to Austria, Libya in 1911 by Italy, and the Balkan states in 1914.Such losses not only eliminated large territories and their subjects, but also shook to its foundations the multinational and multi-religious character of the Empire.Accordingly, the Young Turk regarded the Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians not only as foreigners, but also as distrustful and unwanted people who could only be dealt with through dissolution and extermination. The Young Turk’s distrust of non-Turks was such that Young Turk could not imagine a future Turkey which had as its national base any ethnic or cultural entity not purely their own, in fact mirroring an attitude later manifested fully by Hitler and Turkey’s World War I ally, Germany. It was no surprise, therefore, for Adolf Hilter to justify the massacres committed by the Young Turk, stating in August 1939 as follows: “Who, after all, speaks today of the extermination of the Armenians?”[5]The eruption of a fanatic, nationalistic ideology in both Turkey and Germany led their leaders to be convinced of the necessity of destroying the people they had defined as the target. In Turkey, in WWI, the victims were the Greeks, Armenians, and the Assyrians of all their denominations. For the same reason of confronting a fanatic, nationalistic ideology, the Assyrian survivors of WWI had to suffer another Genocide in 1933 in SEMELE and countless incidences, which reduced them to dispersion and annihilation.

While the evidence abounds in a huge corpus of documents, the U.S. Major General James G. Harborad, the chief of a Fact-Finding Mission to Anatolia, reported in 1919 as follows:

Massacres and deportations were organized in the spring of 1915 under a definite system, the soldiers going from town to town. The official reports of the Turkish Government show 1,100,000 as having been deported. Young men were first summoned to the government building in each village and then marched out and killed. The women, the old men, and children were, after a few days, deported to what Talaat pasha called “agricultural colonies,” from the high, cool, breeze-swept plateau of Armenia to the malarial flats of the Euphrates and the burning sands of Syria and Arabia. Mutilation, violation, torture and death ..the most colossal crime of all the ages.[6]

Our people, with no means to defend themselves, received the biggest blow. No course of action was safe, not one. Those who tried to flee from their historical territories, such as Hikkari, could not save themselves.[7] Neither could those who chose to remain under the Ottoman role escape their horrific destiny. Realizing their pending fate, the terrified Christians made every effort possible to appease their Ottoman masters, whether through distancing themselves from other Christian denominations, namely, the Armenians and Nestorians (as they were called by the Ottomans), or showing neutrality and loyalty in a variety of more subtle ways. For example, the Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox church wrote a telegram to the grand vizier, condemning the “Armenian disturbances,” and thanking “his Majesty for the protection he has ever accorded to it, as also to our Mussulman compatriots.” Finally, the Patriarch begged, “under these circumstances, we can but appeal to the Sovereign, our sole refuge, to protect us in his mercy.”[8] It should be clear from such a communication that the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch felt forced to demonstrate a reproach of a Christian group in order to stake a claim for his own survival.

Few days later, on December 20, 1916, in the New York Times reported: “Syrian Patriarch Slain: Murdered in His Residence in [Mardin] by Band of Turks”[9]

Meanwhile, the language of “the holy war,” Jihad, aroused Muslims against their powerless Christian neighbors.Between the so-called “acts of mobs,” and direct orders of the Ottoman authorities, one third of the Assyrian nation, people of various denominations, were killed. The rest remained “a hostage people,” subjected to all sorts of humiliations, dispersion and annihilation.[10] The following Syriac Patriarch, I. Ephrem, reported (and I quote): “the ‘rumor’ was that the Armenians had rebelled; in reality the mobs were calling for extermination of “all the Christians.”[11]

Thus, the Assyrians of the East had no choice but to try to broker their fate with the Russians. By doing so, they lost one third of their people and gained another ally with imperial pretensions who exacted from them more than they returned. On the other hand, the Assyrians of the West Syriac Churches, who until the end remained loyal to the Ottoman authorities, the only course of action left open to them, were humiliated, dispersed and also lost one third of its people. Finally, when Syria was under the French mandate, the Turks granted “permission … to all Christians” to leave Turkey, creating another flight of refugees. Assyrian Christians (of East and West Syriac Churches) in large numbers fled their land, bringing to an end their centuries old history in Hikkari, Tur Abdin, Mardin, Urfa, Adana and others. The vast majority of them were helpless victims, and innocent of all political ambitions.

The Reaction of the World

The world (the victorious World War I allies) reacted to these holocaustic events with a unified and categorical denunciation of what they determined was criminal massacres. They roundly condemned the Ottoman authorities. Various encouraging statements were issued by the allied nations affirming their support of the Assyrians and Armenians. The American president, Woodrow Wilson, took this to a practical level by delineating fourteen humanitarian principles in the Sevres treaty of 1920. One of these clearly and unambiguously stated that it was the obligation of Turkey to protect the rights of its ethnic minorities and to promote their progress and independence. While Turkey signed the treaty, ostensibly bowing to the terms, the new nationalistic Turkish movement, led by Mustafa Kemal gained momentum and supported by the incipient Soviet Union, created a counter-government at Ankara in the spring of 1920, challenged the treaty and virtually cancelled it.[12] The rise of Mustafa Kemal was followed by various shifts in the political balances in the region. At this stage, the allies were exhausted from their effort against the Germans and its allies, who, we must not forget, included Turkey. This fact should be mentioned because it shows a similarity of feeling towards nationalism and ethnic purity, which was later to erupt so effectively and tragically in World War II. In any event, at this point the allies were feeling the need to look homeward for the post-war cleanup, and possibly did not see Turkey, with its newly shrunken borders, as any kind of threat, either to its internal constituents or anyone else.As such, they conceded, though unwillingly, to Mustafa Kemal. A new treaty was signed in Lausanne in 1923, in which no real obligation toward ethnic minorities was acknowledged.As an outcome of this treaty, the Allies recognized the new frontiers of Turkey, including southern boundary that left a string of cities from Aintab to Urfa, Mardin, Tur Abdin, and Hakkari within new Turkey.[13]

Assyrians in the Aftermath of Genocide

Turkey’s national policy and its priorities did not serve any group except ethnic Turks with no regard whatsoever to their victims, confirming Hitler’s statement: “who, after all, speaks, today, of the extermination of Armenians.”[14] But regardless of contemporary circumstances, the crime of genocide does not expire over time like a penalty in a game of football. The right to exist, the right to live and work and not be harassed on a daily basis for one’s religious beliefs and ethnic background, and the right to have a name and a modicum of protection and civil rights, is stressed and guaranteed in international law. And if in the past the policies of the international communities were totally focused on the balance in the Cold War at the expense of small, oppressed people; now the Cold War is over, and the process of settling these issues begin. But this right means nothing if one does not lives up to it, and appropriately claims it. Thus the Assyrians have to face two challenges: an internal one and a broader based external one. Internally, we need to have our own vision, mission and civilized goal. Our claim will not and cannot be taken seriously by either our partners or by the international community if we cannot rise to this most basic challenge of unity and consistent vision. Externally, as a civilized people, we need to effect an approach which leverages the power of logic and international law for reclaiming our rights. Our most peaceful and logic case is and will continue to be the real test for the credibility of the International Community, U.N. and the whole New World Order, including our partner Turkey for making justice. For the sake of justice, and even for antiquity’s sake, for the sake of the remnant people who created one of the earliest civilization in the world), for the sake of setting our case as an exemplar case pursuing only logic, law and peaceful means for restoring its rights, we appeal to justice.Otherwise, what kind of credibility is this when the victim cannot acquire his justice unless he becomes strong enough to impose his case, and sometime to impose it by force, and virtually, he makes his case “a problem” to the world? Only at that time, the International Community, U.N., and the intended countries move towards solving that “problem”? Such kind of equation between the victim and the International Community with its International Law is just a ridiculous scandal!On our part, thanks be to God, we cannot violently threaten anybody. But, as a civilized people, our only way to pursue our justice will be through peaceful and legal means.

The internal and external challenges may be one and the same in our modern days. Modern technology, computers and telecommunications and especially the Internet, have shrunken the world in a cold fusion of new ideas, startling pathways to success and revolutionary ways of achieving and disseminating information and therefore truth. We must not forget for one minute that at this crucial time we are facing the new, compacted world community in which our people are challenged with its reality:to be “contributors to the new civilization” or not to be. For us, this principle was our challenge throughout our long history; and previously, our people successfully proved their civilized contribution for themselves and for the people(s) they lived with. Moreover, they played the major role as connecting bridges and mediators among a number of civilizations: Greek/ Roman, Persian and Arab. Thus, our mission, today, would become our only identity and entity. We need to be aware that NOT living up to this challenge will spell our destruction and national death. This is because the power of the information highway can work as well in our favor, if we choose to harness it, as against us, if we simply ignored our mission and production; the quick result of it is “total assimilation.” Thus, we may face a different type of genocide/homocide, “hidden genocide: assimilation” leaving behind the precious legacy both of the historical and the living. Today, although the potential of our people lies scattered around the world, as a result of the genocide and its aftermath, we need to determine ways and means, in a unified manner, to turn such scattering into a blessing and productive power. There is in this a tremendous opportunity to make use of such decentralization, and it consists of the possibility to have not just the ears or sympathy of one city or nation, but literally to every corner in the world, and most importantly our partner, Turkey. As someone once said, “Defeat is only Victory Turned Inside Out.”How can we do this?

While many viable answers may be suggested, none will result from the outpouring of emotions or disorganized verbal and counter-effective “sniper attacks” at each other. We need to present ourselves as an example of a peaceful people, which insists on solving its problems peacefully and cooperatively and only through law and logic. I suggest that, in the interest of creating and maintaining national credibility, a professional, Assyrian, working committee(s) may be constituted, which should consist mostly of university scholars in various humanitarian specialties. The committee(s) must be inclusive to include all our branches and religious, linguistic affiliation. Such committee(s), through its constant conferences and promulgation of information, may handle, the critical issues that concern the future of our people. For example, the issue of the genocide would be imperative to be treated first by professionals in genocidal studies, International law, political science and other relevant humanitarian specialties. As specialists in this field know, there is much international legislation that favorably affect our national case. Among such legislature is: the 1948 International Proclamation for Human Rights, which recognizes the equality of all peoples, be they small or large in number; the Right of self-determination; the Right of Native Peoples; the law that the Crime of Genocide never expires; and the most recent one is the 1993 UN Resolution concerning linguistic, religious, or ethnic groups, who live as minorities in a certain country. The 1993 UN Resolution demands from those countries to legislate laws and ways to help protect, develop and revive the culture of their minorities. Its details are even more favorable and persuasive. Thus, a major and most sensitive role is upon the shoulders of the Assyrian professional Committee (of Genocidal Studies, International laws etc.): that is, to prepare a bill of legal case for the genocide of our parents and the rights of their children to live in peace in their extracted territories with guaranteed human, cultural and political rights. This bill needs to be presented to the UN and also directly to Turkey, which is showing its intention to resolve its old problems before 2004.

As we pursue in our aspiration, the committee may demand the UN, for instance, to provide a satellite T.V. channel running 24 hours a day for the Assyrian people as a means of constant connection among its scattered remnants around the world, which occurred as a result of the Genocide. Such a T.V. channel, if executed properly, would go a long way toward preventing the otherwise pending “hidden genocide: Assimilation.”

As another example, we have just finished Symposium Syriacum. Although there are many good things we can relate about it, the most conspicuous feature of the Symposium is that it consists chiefly of non-Assyrians, who have as their scholarly interest the ancient language and manuscripts of our forefathers. While we should be gratified and indebted to them for their achievements in keeping our ancient heritage and literature alive, it would have been more appropriate for the Assyrian “Syriac scholars” to initiate additional, constant conferences on relevant themes that serve our vision, mission and goal. Thus, a committee of Assyrian specialists in the “Syriac Studies” field should be created and follow up on this goal.

The suggestion of creating several working, professional committees [as pillars on which our nation can be erected] may include every vital aspect of the community life, such as genocide studies, education, economy, art, music, society, spirituality, sport ..etc. Each of these committees should be encouraged to intensify their own communications between each other, and they should have their own regular conferences. Furthermore, to demonstrate our willingness to treat others in the world community as we ourselves would like to be treated, the activities of these committees should be open to all interested peoples of all nations, creeds and races. Encouraging unbiased inter-community relations should be a primary objective, to the end that de-isolating ourselves as a people is a crucial component of our overall credibility and as such our world success.

In other words, the collective, cooperative efforts of these committees can plan and help execute their inclusive agenda, and would go a long way toward demonstrating the singularity of purpose and united front that the rest of the world will notice and appreciate. However, our institutions now, as they are, whether cultural, churches, arts or politics can and should still have their role separately and in cooperation with the committees. As a separate activity, the example of the convention of the AUA in 1998 was exemplary. At that convention, a Middle Eastern President, personally and publicly recognized our people as an ethnic and civilized people integral to the homeland. President M. Khatimi said, “Today, although the Assyrians are few in number in comparison with world population, they are present and active in our human society as well as an independent ethnic group and as the masters of a culture with a historical record, bearers of a rich civilization.”[15]

In conclusion, I would like to say that no matter how dire our situation may seem, the fact is that our ancestors and parents succeeded in the challenge of their time, and this truly means that we can succeed in ours: “to be contributors to the new civilization or not to be.” Otherwise, what! Shall our nation die, now, in this time of unprecedented possibilities and renewed world interest in native cultures and peoples, when our ancestors somehow scraped up their survival as actual slaves and servants with all the barbaric, uncivilized attitudes of empire-grasping masters as their added challenge? If for no other reason than for the respect we owe to the memory of their monumental achievement, and to ourselves as a nation, we likewise MUST prove our competence and pride; God willing.

[1] Yearbook of the United Nations, 1947-1948 (New York: The United Nations, 1949) 595-599.

[2] Yearbook of the United Nations, 1948-1949 (New York: The United Nations, 1950) 595ff.

[3] E. Southgate, Narrative of a Visit to the Syrian [Jacobite] Church of Mesopotamia (New York: Appleton, 1844) 87.

[4] Shah Kuvad..

[5] Louis Lochner, What About Germany? (New York: Dodd Mead, 1942) 2; Gerhard L. Weinberg, The Foreign policy of Hitler’s Germany: Starting World War II, 1937-1939 (Chicago/ London, 1980) 610-612; see also “Letters to the Editors,” New York Times (June 8, 1985) 16.

[6] U.S. Congress, Senate, 66th Cong., 2nd sess., Senate Document no. 266, Major General James G. Harbord, Conditions in the Near East: Report of the American Military Mission to Armenia (Washington, D.C.: G.P.O., 1920) 7.

[7] For details on the fleeing from Hikkari, see Abdul-Massih Saadi, “The Scythe of the Ottomans and the Decimation of the Assyrian Nation,” Journal of Assyrian Academic Society Vol. XII.2 (forthcoming).

[8] Echos d’Orient, 424, no. 187.Concerning the Patriarch, it was reported that he was collaborator with the Ottoman authorities who helped him elected as a Patriarch; See J. Joseph, Muslim-Christian Relations, 92-93.

[9]New York Times, Dec. 20, 1916.

[10] Two Documents in the Archive of the British Foreign Ministry; Cf. Y. Ibrahem, Mar Ignatius Ephrem (Damascus: 1996) 68-69.

[12] Kemal’s leadership sought an ally with the soviets over against “Great Britain and the common enemies in the West.”During the summer of 1920 the first shipment of Soviet gold reached Anatolia.See Richard Hovannisian, “Armenia and the Caucasus in the Genesis of the Soviet-Turkish Entente,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 4 (1973) 129-47.